Posts about Spring Breakers
Synopsis
After four college girls rob a restaurant to fund their spring break in Florida, they get entangled with a weird dude that has his own criminalย?agenda.
Cast
James Franco as Alien
Vanessa Hudgens as Candy
Selena Gomez as Faith
Ashley Benson as Brit
Rachel Korine as Cotty
Gucci Mane as Archie ("Big Arch")
Crew
Harmony Korine (writer and director)
Benoรฎt Debie (cinematographer)
Douglas Crise (editor)
Skrillex and Cliff Martinez (score)
Where to Watch
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NEXT WEEK: The Bling Ring dir. Sofia Coppola
Spring Breakers 2013
Director/Writer - Harmony Korine
James Franco - Alien
Vanessa Hudgens - Candy
Selena Gomez - Faith
Ashley Benson - Brit
Rachel Korine - Cotty
Gucci Mane โ Archie
Just to be clear none of this is fact this is just how I saw the movie. Also thereโs a TL:DR at the bottom.
Sorry for grammar, if something doesn't make sense and all that good stuff, I wrote this in a hurry during a lunch break.
I had few expectations coming into this film, I thought it was supposed to be a fun film and the only reason I really wanted to see it was to see James Franco portray a character that, as a friend reminded me, in manner and speech resembled the iconic character Drexl portrayed by Gary Oldman in Tony Scottโs True Romance. I was wrong this is a smart exploitation film that is an assault on pop culture. The brilliance of the film comes in while youโre watching the film and trying to define it; it's one part exploitation, one part over-intellectualization of exploitation film. It's like Korine made a soft-core porn with James Franco, barely-legal-Disney-famous-teens, and called it art. But I think it's safe to say it's more of the former. Although like any exploitation film a lot of common viewers will probably see this as perpetuating stereotypes.
Review
If you want a review check out Roger Ebert's he pretty much nails it.
http://www.rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130320/REVIEWS/130329996/-1/RSS
Further Review/Analysis
Pros - Stylish and surreal (if you like that), original structure and character flow, memorable scenes. The best part of the movie is its underlying themes. Spring Breakers contains symbolic interpretations of the exploitation of sex, violence and power within pop-culture, its relationship to the mentality of get rich and famous or die trying, and the warped image of the American dream to todayโs misguided youths.
There were amazing performances, especially from Franco, but also from, Hudgens and Gomez. Their other castmates Benson and Korine were also very good but were not as standout as those three.
Cons - A highly stylish film doesnโt cause a movie to fail look no further than Malick (Tree of life, Badlands) or Refn (Drive, Valhalla Rising) who have had very strong commercial and critical success with similar structure. However, Spring Breakers hand held style of camera flourishes seemed to fall short in some of the high suspense moments specifically the end. The director succeeded in every way except for the filming of violence. The shootout at the end couldnโt have looked more unrealistic and I really lost my suspension of disbelief in that moment. People seemed to be no further than 10 feet from each other shooting rapidly and missing uncontrollably.
Additionally the repetition of the films motifs felt a little redundant, the regular cutbacks to spring breaks, general hedonism and scenes of power/violence were frequent and at moments felt like fillers. Use that editing technique a few times and you get your point across, the overuse left me annoyed as well as all of my friends.
Themes, symbolism and all that good stuff.
The Four Girls in Alien's World
Sounds like the title to a fairy tale.
Alien - Fame, wealth, and glamour - To the four girls; excluding Faith, Alien represents all the seductions of the American Dream with no work involved, he's the devil's promise. He can bring to them everything they wanted without all the trouble. He is the illusion of the American Dream, easily accepted by misguided youth and perpetuated by a lot of pop culture. Because these seductions are "alien" to them, they perceive his gangster life style as being the American dream and they fall for the trap.
Faith- is the main character of the first half of the movie she wants to meet up with her childhood friends from school and go on spring break with them. She does this as she is curious about โparty lifeโ and bored with her normal life Faith decides to go with them to search this lifestyle. This is up until they meet Alien, Faith decides that the sins theyโre engaging in are wrong and she wants to get away from this lifestyle that just weeks ago she was so curious about and thought so glamorous of. I got the feeling that these kids were fairly misguided youths or rather more unsupervised than most; the director seems to suggest that religion can often keep you on a good path without too much commentary on religion itself. This was alluded to briefly in the early parts of the movie during the bible prayers. The blond tipped bible pastor says,
โ1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV โ But when you are tempted he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. How awesome is that?โ
You see Alien try to seduce Faith when he takes her into the side room and tells her he wonโt hurt her and he just wants to have fun. Faith decides she doesnโt like Alien who seeks to pervert her to his illusions of fame, riches and fun over the ideals of home, her family and religion. This is like the devils offering, she sees through this asks her roommates to come home with her because she knows it wonโt turn out well. They donโt as they feel theyโve found a perfect place, noted by the monologues to their parents.
Candy and Brit โ Best represent the subject of the movie, the use of sex and violence for power and how that relates to pop culture. The power of gender roles and role reversal, as well as, the perversion of the American dream by pop culture. Pop culture glorifies people one minute and trashes on them the next. If you look at it as a whole itโs pretty self-destructive if you play into its hand.
Alien mistakes these two for soft individuals but as we saw earlier on in the film theyโre fairly insane and robbed a bunch of people. They get off on power. Which is eventually what they want from Alien to submit to them and this is why he performs fellatio on their guns, a pretty hilarious but intense scene as they seem pretty serious about killing him.
Cotty - Is similar to Faith however she clearly takes her own path that leads to equally dangerous activities, she ends up getting shot and decides to go back home and change that she has become. Essentially following the same path as Faith, but took a longer route and one that didnโt involve religion. She was also arguably the most fallen girl up until the end as she was the most sexually promiscuous throughout the film and was involved in all other endeavors equally as much as any other girl.
Gucci Mane โ Other than being in the movie to bring conflict, if he was purposefully written to represent something itโs likely he represents the real threat of this gangster-glamour lifestyle that Alien and the three girls have created for themselves.
The artistic reasoning for Alien dying and the girls all living is that they are representative of pop-culture whereas one can implode themselves with illusions of grandeur Alienโs lifestyle is one that has much more real and final consequences. This separation is made during the scene where the 3 bikini clad girls are wearing pink ski masks holding assault weapons like stripper poles and singing and dancing with Alien to Britney Spears (the greatest pop culture/sex icon of the recent generations).
TL:DR The movie punches pop-culture that exploits negative lifestyles, such as TV shows that reward negative or self-destructive behavior. The movie isnโt a masterpiece, however it does hit really strongly in many areas, fall in a few other areas, but overall Spring Breakers is well worth the viewing for movie aficionados because of its artistic accomplishments, overall message and how the message is implemented. Spring Breakers makes a great addition to the genre of exploitation films while satirizing them.
A sleazy piece of exploitation with art-house leanings about four young college girls (Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine and Vanessa Hudgens) who escape their small town lives to spend their spring break in Florida โ and enjoy all the debauchery the beaches and parties have to offer. As their paths cross with eccentric local rapper and small time gangster, Alien (James Franco) the girls are seduced into his dark world of violence and drugs, finding the excitement and danger lacking in their normal lives.
Exploitation cinema has had a rough ride in recent years โ trashy examples from the 70s and 80s are often considered kitsch masterpieces, receiving nostalgic screenings and the framed poster treatment; more contemporary efforts (Piranha 3DD, for example) are critically panned and derided. Fundamentally the movies are the same โ there just isnโt that retrograde VHS grain that makes them acceptable to like. So with โSpring Breakersโ we have a pure piece of modern exploitation dressed with acceptability โ a highly regarded (if controversial) director in Harmony Korine, a cast of former clean-cut teen stars (Hudgens and Gomez were both Disney girls), an A-list leading man and an art-house aesthetic and structure.
Not driven by narrative or character, itโs more of an audio visual assault of pop culture, with more tits, guns, drugs and teen angst than a 16-year-old's Tumblr feed.
Chopping back and forth in time, replaying scenes and dialogue, it unfolds more like a bunch of hazy memories. Thanks to the endless energy and pace itโs still completely compelling, and as funny, sexy, and sleazy as it needs to be to hold the attention. Much of this is down to Franco, who is fantastic as the bizarre, manic Alien โ nailing all the movieโs best lines and creating a character who will surely pass into cult status.
Shot with the leering eye of porn and pop videos, it has a mix of mainstream gloss and frenetic voyeuristic handheld footage, spliced with grubby digital YouTube clips. Painted with a seductive colour palette of tanned flesh and bright clashing neons, paralleled with Floridaโs dingy underworld, the colours linger in the memory far longer than the film itself. The construction works fantastically well, capturing the raw energy of youth โ perhaps a comment on pop culture and our consumption of content in short bursts, but youโd have to really want to see it. That being said, Alien showing the girls round his house exclaiming โLOOK AT MY SHIT! LOOK AT ALL MY SHITโ certainly says something about our material culture and compulsion to โshareโ, and the our skewed idea of โmaking itโ. There are also some well-observed truths about female friendship and adolescence โ the recurring theme of wanting to stay locked in a moment of youth is something we can all relate to; as is the sense of invincibility every teenager feels, where no actions have consequences and horrific experiences only afflict others.
Ultimately itโs a hugely enjoyable slice of filth that passingly works as a superficial satire of youth culture. With no real depth, this sleazy, titillating, frantic ride delivers more than enough entertainment โ but leaves an urge to have a good shower afterwards.
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[ 2012 โ Dir: Harmony Korine โ 94 mins โ 18 cert โ IMDb ]